Michael Graves: Compact Design Portfolio (Compact Design Portfolio)

Book Description

The stylish little books in our new Compact Design Portfolio series put great classic and contemporary design within everyone's grasp. Launching with four leading designers of the twentieth century--Richard Sapper, Michael Graves, Eileen Gray, and Jean Prouve--these exciting new books defy the idea that design is inaccessible. Each book contains an introductory essay addressing the designer's life and work, penned by a distinguished design writer with real knowledge of and fresh enthusiasm for the designer at hand. Subsequent pages dynamically illustrate numerous key works in photographs and sketches--from Sapper's famous Tizio lamp to Graves's Target line, Prouve's pioneering metal furniture to Gray's Rioli desk. This series will extend into future seasons with more titles featuring an eclectic mix of international design heroes. In an irresistible small format packed with images and useful information, the Compact Design Portfolio books are affordable enough to collect the entire series. At long last, here's the perfect introduction to the influential designers who changed the face of contemporary design.

Book Description

Walter Foster's classic How to Draw and Paint series provides aspiring artists with an exceptional array of art instruction books featuring all subject areas and media. Each title includes easy step-by-step exercises as well as finished illustrations or paintings that will inspire artistic talent in anyone.

Packed with practical information, helpful tips, and fundamental techniques, the How to Draw and Paint series offers a complete library of resources to which artists of all skill levels can refer again and again.

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Small Paintings That Sell (Volume 201)

Manufacturer: Walter T. Foster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000BJTJG6

Product Description

Original price: $2.95

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SMALL PAINTINGS THAT SELL
Lola Ades
Manufacturer: Walter t. Foster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QAA1D0

Book Description

Now available from Chronicle Books, this classic volume is a glorious tribute to one of the most beautiful regions in the world. Thousands of Americans visit Tuscany and Umbria each year, and the timeless charms of the hill towns of northern Italy are impossible to forget. Anyone who has wandered the cobblestone streets of Siena or Orvieto or basked in a sunny piazza of Assisi or Montepulciano can attest to the enchanting power and romance of these ancient villages. The Hill Towns of Italy, capturing in luminous photographs the very special feeling of this region, serves as an evocative memoir for those who have had the good fortune to visit the hill towns and an irresistible lure for those who have not yet made the pilgrimage.

Customer Reviews:

Not enough pictures.......2005-09-08

While the information in this book is very interesting, we had hoped for a few more pictures of the Tuscan countryside.

Hill Towns of Italy.......2005-09-02

The book is in good condition, and provides the information I need. It came very quickly. BUT -- it was supposed to be a paperback book and it is hardback. I wanted paperback so that I could take it with me when I travel!

Biased but you will be too!.......2001-06-28

OK, my grandfather, Richard Kauffman (now deceased), spent 12 years photographing the eternal beauty of the hill towns of italy and all of the photographs in this book, now in its second reprint, were lovingly color-separated personally by him in his garage. He wouldn't even trust another printer with the quality of his images, being a printer by trade himself. Family bias aside, having since travelled to the towns, he captures Sienna as if you were there. Enjoy it as we do...

Light on depth.......2000-06-09

This book is mostly a picture book (and the pictures aren't that great) with little information. Having spent time in all of these towns, the pictures do not do justice. Also, the author concentrates on towns that are full of tour buses and very unpleasant - especially during season. There are so many more hill towns in Umbria and Tuscany that are more out of the way and charming. I guess I should be greatful that they weren't disclosed so that they stay less touristy!

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I enjoyed this book
Breaking Out of the Cocoon
very disappointing book from a usually awesome author
Not Siddons's best, alas.
Not Her Best

Hill Towns
Anne Rivers Siddons , and Anne Rivers-Siddons
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 006017935X

Amazon.com

Although Hill Towns is a coming-of-age story, it's no Romeo and Juliet. There are no young lovers flirting and bedding each other, thinking they've invented the act--this novel centers around adults. The main characters have been married for more than 20 years and believe they know each other absolutely. A trip to Italy shows them there is still much to learn.

Catherine "Cat" Gaillard narrates her own story, beginning with a gothic childhood of the sort that inspires folk ballads and tasteless jokes. Orphaned at age 5 when her parents are killed in a freakish accident, Cat chooses to live on Morgan's Mountain as the ward of chilly, crazy grandparents, though saner family members are willing to take her in. She reasons that, "From there I would always know what was coming. From there I would see it long before it saw me."

The rest of the story follows Cat and her husband, Joe, on their journey of midlife discovery. They both flirt with the possibility of an affair, they bicker, challenge assumptions, make new friends, drink too much, eat fabulous food, and tour Rome, Florence, and Venice. It's like being there. Siddons lets you inhabit Cat's mind and experience her struggle to overcome agoraphobia, her uncertainties about Joe, and, most of all, her neophyte-traveler's view of Italy. Hill Towns is an exploration of a mature relationship, but it's also an effective travelogue. Read it and see if you don't start to crave caffé granita on the piazza. --Brenda Pittsley

Book Description

A single event in her childhood irrevocably marked Catherine Gaillard -- and made it impossible for her to leave her cloistered mountaintop town in Tennessee for the next thirty years. But her devotion to her husband, Joe, and her desire to forever put the incident behind her propel Cat on a life-changing trip to Italy.

Making their way across the countryside of Tuscany with two other couples, Cat and Joe soon feel themselves pulled in different directions, and the fabric of their marriage begins to unravel. Expanding beyond the bounds of a carefree trip, their journey takes them deep into the heart of their relationship...and becomes the ultimate test of their love.

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Customer Reviews:

I enjoyed this book.......2006-01-16

The book HILL Towns arrived promptly after I ordered it.I enyoy all of Anne Rivers Siddons books and so enjoyed this one also.It was a good study in relationships as are all her books.

Breaking Out of the Cocoon.......2005-08-25

Catherine clings to her husband and the security of the mountaintop where she's always lived. The traumatic death of her parents early in her life triggered agoraphobia.
Now with counseling, she pushes herself to expand beyond the cloistered home and small college circle that comprised their comfortable, but restricted life.
Wanting to please her husband, she stretches herself to visit Italy. In the company of young newlyweds and a renowned artist and his wife, Cat and her husband, Joe, experience the wonders of Rome, Venice and Tuscany. The basics of their marriage shifts and raises questions they never faced before.
I greatly enjoyed the travel descriptions, but found Cat's fearful personality pretty depressing. I wanted to see her blossom and bring about a happy ending. Instead, the complex mix of who-loves-who becomes ultimately destructive to all.

very disappointing book from a usually awesome author.......2005-08-22

I wanted so badly to like this book. I recently relished reading Anne River Siddons' The House Next Door, and have thoroughly enjoyed other books she's written. As an Italian-American, I can't resist books that are set in Italy, and reviews have described this book as a travelogue through the hills of Tuscany. I suppose my expectations were very high for an "Under The Tuscan Sun"-like novel written by an author whose style I admire and appreciate.

I picked this book up three times, tried moving onto other reading material and returning to it afterwards, hoping I'd be in a different mindset and could open up to it better, but this novel simply wasn't going to make its way into my heart despite having so much promise.

The two main characters were quite weird, and not very likeable. The book opens in a university town in the mountains of Tennessee, with an agorophobic heroine who won't leave the hill on which she lives. Eventually, with therapy she is able to take a trip to Italy with her husband. The dynamics of these characters and their relationship is too intense. What saves the novel is the luscious settings, which the author succeeds in describing in vivid detail.

Still, I found the book so oppressingly boring that I had to quit reading about 1/2 of the way through, and just skimmed through to the end. The couple had a blind daughter, who was briefly mentioned in the opening chapters - now that's a storyline that should have been developed better. It would have been fascinating to learn how a mother who is afraid to leave her community raises a blind child into a well-rounded, quite normal adult.

All in all, this book was a huge disappointment, although it can't be said that I didn't try my best to appreciate it.

Not Siddons's best, alas........2004-02-04

I agree with what most others say -- not the author's best! I actually liked the parts in Italy much better than the beginning, which I thought went on for WAY too long, with Cat harping on and on about her terrible childhood and her agoraphobia. Boooring. In fact, I considered not continuing with the book after about 50 pages of Idyllic Life On The Mountain and Great Sex With My Husband. But the Italian stuff was interesting.
I haven't read all of her books yet, but Colony is fabulous and so were Downtown and Up Island. Outer Banks was pretty good, too. Interesting how it seems like Siddons's married heroines always stay faithful in the end, no matter how jerky their husbands are and how sexy the competition is. Guess she is really a traditional Southern girl at heart!

Not Her Best.......2001-10-15

I have enjoyed her other books...but, this one was a yawner. Too slow moving, too repitious, did not grab my attention at all...Joe was a jerk! I hope she does not start pumping out books like other authors just to sell them. All I can do is hope the next one will have a little more substance. Way too much fluff...

Florence, Tuscany & Umbria: The Complete Guide with the Best of the Art Treasures and Hill Towns (Fodor's Florence, Tuscany and Umbria)

Average customer rating:

Florence, Tuscany & Umbria: The Complete Guide with the Best of the Art Treasures and Hill Towns (Fodor's Florence, Tuscany and Umbria)
Fodor's
Manufacturer: Fodor's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0679027157
Release Date: 1995-01-31

Beyond the Alps: A Summer in the Italian Hill Towns

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Beyond the Alps: A Summer in the Italian Hill Towns
Robert M. Coates
Manufacturer: William Sloane Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books

Cortona in Context: The History and Architecture of an Italian Hill Town to the 17th Century

Average customer rating:

Fascinating for students of architecture and history
a book to treasure and carry to Tuscany

Cortona in Context: The History and Architecture of an Italian Hill Town to the 17th Century
Philancy N. Holder
Manufacturer: Hp Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Book Description

If you're English-speaking and want to know more about Cortona, the options can be frustrating. Only guidebooks, some paragraphs in general sources, and this author's article in Macmillan's 1992 "Dictionary of Art and Architecture" offer opportunities. That scarcity prompted Philancy Holder to Write "Cortona in Context". Tuscan libraries provided rich insights into what made Cortona look like it does and 20 years experience as an art historian suggested methods to arrive at observations and conclusions about the city's architectural heritage.

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating for students of architecture and history.......2005-07-11

A well written and valuable book. Despite many fine and evocotive photographs, a future edition would be much enriched by some floor plans and more drawings.

a book to treasure and carry to Tuscany.......2002-12-04

Cortona is an ancient hilltown whose winding stone streets mount up and up until you can see out over the valley. A world apart, this medieval town enclosed by its original walls has changed little in several centuries: a church built by St. Francis's good friend Brother Elias still stands with Francis's own tunic preserved under glass and you can wander through the very piazzas walked by great men from long ago. The present day charm of Cortona which is intimate enough to see in a day has been praised by the writer Frances Mayes who lives within walking distance outside the walls, but historian Philancy Holder tells us how it got that way in a tour of the very streets and structures: the gates, the convents, the churches and their saints, the rows of medieval houses and crests of long gone, noble Italian families embedded in a civic wall. Illustrated with many evocative pictures from the stone arching city gates to the palazzos, it is a book to carry around with you as you walk back in history. A must have for anyone who wants to understand Tuscany history, and how one intimate town grew over the centuries.

Average customer rating:

Discovering the Hill Towns of Italy
Paul Duncan
Manufacturer: Pavilion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1851458751

Florence, Tuscany and Umbria: The Complete Guide with the Best of the Art Treasures and Hill Towns (Fodor's Florence, Tuscany and Umbria)

Average customer rating:

The only reference you'll ever need.
OK, but not thorough

Florence, Tuscany and Umbria: The Complete Guide with the Best of the Art Treasures and Hill Towns (Fodor's Florence, Tuscany and Umbria)
Fodor's
Manufacturer: Fodor's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0679032193
Release Date: 1996-11-26

Book Description

All the essentials of a perfect trip

· Top hotels, inns, and pensions for all budgets
· The best restaurants and trattorias
· The Renaissance glory of Florence
· The fortress towns--Lucca, Fiesole, Perugia--and the arts towns--Assisi, Pisa, Siena, and Spoleto
· Ancient ruins bathed in Tuscan light
· Where to find spas, fishing, hiking, and other pleasures

Customer Reviews:

The only reference you'll ever need........2001-08-18

Our family and extended family traveled to France & Italy this summer. This book was the most comprehensive, quick guide for historic background, inside stories and accurate directions, as well as reviews. Every hotel or restaurant was exactly as reviewed. No surprises! When you are traveling with 15 people you don't need surprises, just information you can rely on. This book and the Fodor's Provence Gold guide were excellent examples of this!

OK, but not thorough.......2000-10-01

This is fine if you want to hit the main tourist sites and bigger towns. However, if you really want to explore Tuscany, we used the Food Lovers Guide to Tuscany, Charming Inns and Hotels of Tuscany and Michellin. Also, the Eyewitness guide provides better coverage of Florence.

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Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy
Dorothy Noyes Arms; And Illustrated By John Taylor Arms
Manufacturer: MACMILLAN COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJSDUQ

Average customer rating:

Hill towns and cities of northern Italy
Dorothy Noyes Arms
Manufacturer: The Macmillan Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Urban Planning & Development | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000857UBO

Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy with Fifty-Six Reproductions of Etchings, Aquatints, and Dr

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Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy with Fifty-Six Reproductions of Etchings, Aquatints, and Dr
Dorothy Noyes (Text) & John Taylor Arms Arms
Manufacturer: Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000V5V4EA

Book Description

We play favorites. We admit it. Everybody does it. Just try to tell us that despite your mom's protests to the contrary, you haven't suspected - just a little - that she may have given your sibling a bit more free rein than what you seemed to get. Not that there's anything wrong with you, of course, it's just that in the process the other one probably got to see a little more of the world, courtesy of dear old Mom. Why are we bringing up these painful, formerly repressed memories? Not to drive a wedge between you and your family members (although there is a certain entertainment value to that) or to send yu rocketing to the nearest therapist's couch (but what could it hurt?). It's to make a point, which is...um...something about favoritism. Anyway, we've gone out of way this year to avoid any hard feelings when selecting the cartoons for this Far Side Desk Calendar. They're probably some that you haven't seen for awhile, least of all in a Desk Calendar, because none of these has ever been in a Desk Calendar before. Ever. Think of them as the silent suffering siblings who sat fuming away while their brothers and sisters were picked ahead of them. Now it's their turn, and in true overachiever fashion, they're determined to be the best ever. Let the healing begin.

Customer Reviews:

I hate the same old things from the same old people.......2003-02-05

Just like how barbara phillips of NC hates seeing the same old things from Larson, I hate seeing the same old reviews from the same old people. Makes you wonder what is going on when someone writes two similar reviews for the same book, slightly different in languge, but promoting other authors. Does this person work for another publishing company or is she related to the other people? I don't know, but I do warn people to think twice about basing your decision to buy on customer reviews. You never know who is writing them. Maybe even this review will get posted.

FORGET THE FAR SIDE.......2002-07-04

Why doesn't the publisher get someone with new funny material instead of rehashing the same old Far Side toons. How many times can you listen to the same "toons" before your nerves are shot.
Please get someone with new material in there!... The bookstore humor section is the same over and over again. I want a single-panel cartoon like Speedbump, Reynolds Unwrapped, or Reality Check ...These are the 3 best cartoons on the market that I've seen

...

As Always, Wonderful!.......2002-02-19

This is a classic Far Side delight. The calendar is a great gift for friends and family and for yourself. I highly recommend!

Far Side Calendar isn't far enough ...away!.......2001-12-17

I have always enjoyed the Far Side cartoons and every year
purchased the wall calendar and Engagement book. Unfortunately,
this year's engagement book is very disappointing. The cartoons
are not amusing. In fact, I found the book as a whole to be very
depressing. I will not use this calendar this year because it is
such a "downer" and plan to buy a different engagement book.

Even caviar tastes terrible if you eat it too much.......2001-12-11

Larson is a genius, no doubt. He gave us great work. BUT I'm so sick and tired of seeing the same cartoons over and over and over again just packaged differently. Do we cartoon lovers look like idiots? If Larson is done doing cartoons, that's fine, BUT get NEW material in there.
I've seen other cartoonists who can fill this bill quite nicely. Dana Summers' Bound and Gagged is good. Put some of this stuff out. A new cartoon that I really like a lot, Reynolds Unwrapped by Dan Reynolds, is as good or better than The Far Side. Surely, your company can come up with some new material instead of selling us the same thing over and over.

Customer Reviews:

Gris debuts with a BTO caliber book........1998-08-06

Ed Grisamore consistently writes some of the best columns in middle Georgia. "True Gris" showcases his talents at their best. His stories will make you laugh, swallow hard at times, but will always make you think. This is a great first book - only thing is, I've seen the proof of his second, "Once Upon A Whoopee" and it is even better. I'd advise ya'll to get this book now, before Ed gets fabulously wealthy and retires to his Palm Springs abode.

Book Description

The past decade has given rise to a growing debate over the relative efficiency of different national economic systems. There are two basic corporate finance and governance systems that predominate in today's developed economies. One is the Anglo-American market based model, with widely dispersed shareholders and a fairly vigorous corporate control market. The other is the Japanese and German relationship based system, with its large bank and intercorporate holdings (and conspicuous absence of takeovers). Given the increasing globalization of business, which of these two systems can be expected to prevail over time? Or will the most valuable aspects of each be blended into a single new system? The story now being told by economists and management experts -- one that this book presents -- is a complicated one. Here is a sampling of the arguments: Corporate strategist Michael Porter states that the U.S. system of allocating capital both within and across companies appears to be failing because of both capital market and internal pressures on U.S. companies to underinvest in the relatively intangible assets that contribute to corporate capabilities. In contrast to Porter, financial economist Michael Jensen maintains that the most formidable challenge now facing the U.S. economy -- and, indeed, the economies of all industrialized nations -- is the corporate overinvestment problem, a problem that was addressed in the U.S. by the leveraged restructuring of the 1980s. Nobel-Prize economist Merton Miller answers both Porters concern about U.S. underinvestment and Jensens pessimism about U.S. control systems with a classic defense of the shareholder-value principle. Corporate strategist C.K. Prahalad, unconvinced by the arguments of both Miller and Jensen, challenges the wisdom of corporate Americas commitment to maximizing shareholder value. In a roundtable discussion, Prahalad debates with shareholder value advocate Bennett Stewart about the effects of shareholder primacy in the U.S. and its absence in Japan. Studies in International Corporate Finance and Governance Systems consists of 28 articles (and two roundtable discussions) written by academic and management experts in the fields of corporate finance and governance. Given its commitment to translating outstanding academic research into relatively plain English for practicing businessmen, this text should prove especially useful for corporate executives as well as students in MBA and executive development programs.

Customer Reviews:

Useful concise book.......2000-12-10

As admitted in the book there is an overemphasis on American governance systems due to the many high quality research papers available by leading US academics. The strong point of this book is that the research has been condensed into concise short papers easily understood by corporate accountants (like myself). It gives a broad view of Agency Theory and the associated costs and benefits of various governance models and real life examples. As I am working in Japan, my interest was in the comparision of systems between Japan & US (as an Australian I was dissapointed at no analysis of the Australian perspective). However, the rapid change in the Japanese corporate environment in the last 1-2 years makes some of the discussions marginally out of date. A lot of the analysis though is so fundamental it is unlikely its basis will change much in the next 10 years. A good read and very thought provoking.

Written by top finance professors.......2000-08-08

This book was written by a number of famous finance professors including several Novel Prize winners. Each chapter was written by the world class academics and this contains comprehensive topics relating to international finance and governance system. This book is not expensive at all but you can learn a lot.

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